A Domus de Janas (‘house of fairies’) is usually an artificial cave dug into rocky blocks and used as prehistoric burial sites. La Rocca, perhaps the largest on the island, is considered as the ‘Domus de Janas cathedral’. It was built into a 12m-high boulder, shaped firstly by nature and, more significantly, by man. La Rocca rises up on the edge of the Baldana Valley, on the lip of the limestone plateau where Sedini, a village in the Anglona region, is located just a few kilometres from Castelsardo.
The monument, which has spanned five millennia, from the 4th-3rd millennia BC (recent Neolithic) to the 20th century, dominates the town from above, structured around it like a natural amphitheatre, between the hills of La Maglina and Lu Padru.
The transformations throughout the centuries, especially in the Middle Ages, have rendered it part of the life of the village: it was a quarry that produced bricks, a prison, an animal shelter, shop and then a private home. Today, a series of environments from different eras carved into the living rock are integrate with each other via floors and masonry distributed throughout the three levels, currently housing the Museum dedicated to Anglona’s ethnographic traditions.
A Neolithic necropolis is the oldest ‘layer’ of the fortress (3500-2700 BC), connected to the settlements that eventually rose up nearby. Indeed, the plateau is dotted with caves inhabited in prehistory: Li Conchi, Li Caadaggi and La Pilchina.
Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission
Via Malta 63 — 09124 Cagliari
Phone: +39 070 2041961
Email: filmcommission@regione.sardegna.it
